Paul Sevigny

A Way Out, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Almost, 2021

Oil on canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

You Again, 2020

Oil on canvas

60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Don't Stand Up, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Big Brush, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Civilization, 2020

Oil on Canvas

60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Conversation, 2021

Oil on canvas

60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Almost Home, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Waltz, 2020

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Strangers, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Back Again, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Daylight, 2020

Oil on Canvas

60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Call Me Later, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Europe 1928, 2020

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Leros, 2020

Oil on Canvas

48h x 72w in
121.92h x 182.88w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Are You Sure, 2020

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Foxboro '87, 2021

Oil on Canvas

36h x 48w in
91.44h x 121.92w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Baby, 2020

Oil on canvas

48h x 36w in
121.92h x 91.44w cm

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Paul Sevigny

After The War, 2020

Oil on canvas

60h x 72w in
152.40h x 182.88w cm

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Paul Sevigny

Golden Eye, 2020

Oil on linen

48h x 72w in
121.92h x 182.88w cm

PS0019

PAUL SEVIGNY

"Sight Unseen"

39 Lispenard St.

July 15 – August 21, 2021

Paul Sevigny

Sight Unseen

July 15th - August 21th, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Freight+Volume presents Sight Unseen, an exhibition of recent paintings by Paul Sevigny, on view in Tribeca July 15th through August 21st, 2021. This is Sevigny’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. We will host a public reception on Thursday, July 15th from 7 - 9 pm.

 

The methods and techniques incorporated into Paul Sevigny’s most recent series of all red paintings—with their subliminal summits, softly defined spaces, and intuited perceptions pierced by figuration—carry over from his more whimsical and colorful works. And while Sevigny’s red paintings came later, conceived over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, their overall significance is less a thing of novelty than a study in the interrelationship of focus and constraint.

 

The canvases from both series share similar themes and appearances, but there's a marked sense of individuality that obtains between them. The predominantly red painting Almost lives up to its title through suggesting figuration. However abstract the canvas might initially seem, there's an organizational rhythm about it not unlike a landscape. Big Brush, by contrast, is more about the materiality of paint and pigment. Vermiculate red lines segment the canvas into zones of energy, anticipating the viewer’s gaze and allowing him to visually dissect the painting however he likes.

 

The phrase Sight Unseen becomes anagrammatized in Sevigny’s work. The title takes on a more esoteric connotation, perception by way of introspection, which is what abstraction was historically developed to describe. On the one hand, one could say that Sevigny’s canvases offer glimpses into a hypnagogic realm, more meditative than monastic. On the other, there's a kind of willful tranquility about his works—which happens whenever an artist decides beforehand that he will not make up his mind about what a canvas means until after he has finished it.

 

This, of course, parallels an attitude endemic to the not-quite-eradicated pandemic. The question, “what comes next?” haunts Sevigny’s paintings. The serial nature of his work looks for variation in minute particulars, where difference is magnified against a patterned backdrop. This enveloping backdrop could be the color red, along with its many variant shades, or it could be the way the suggestion of a line divides a visual surface, creating a tessellated image like a map to an unknown territory.

 

Paul Sevigny received his BA in Studio Arts from College of Charleston in 1994. He has since had numerous successful careers in a variety of fields including music, finance and nightlife. He started to show his paintings again in 2017 with two consecutive shows curated by Bill Powers in NYC and Miami that were followed by a string of group shows, among them an exhibition held by Christie‘s in New York. Sight Unseen is his first solo show with a gallery in Manhattan.